“We’re getting Minnesota with it,” the narrator of this year’s Minnesota high school hockey all-hair team video says, as the camera cuts to a plate of spam, lutefisk, and a lefse, which is then placed on a vinyl copy of Purple Rain. It somehow only gets more Minnesota from there.

Let’s all go back to 1992, when The Simpsons’ “Homer At The Bat” first aired. Mr. Burns recruits a bunch of ballplayers as ringers for his softball team, including Don Mattingly. Here’s a very good, long piece on the episode, and how it got made.

We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries.

Pavano, Kevin Johnson, Jim Joyce and UTEP Mascot Paydirt Pete are the sports world's representatives among the Robert Goulet Mustache American Of The Year nominees. Mike Cooper deserves a lifetime achievement award. [AMI]

Because no one reads the newspaper, and SportsCenter's anchors are too perky for this early in the morning, Deadspin combs the best of the broadsheets and internets to bring you everything you need to know to start your day.

Collin Balester was having trouble. He had a great mustache, but he wasn't pitching well at all. He had beaned Rickie Weeks and Mark Reynolds in the head. He needed to make a radical change. The mustache, unfortunately, would have to go.

The grizzly folks at the AMI are none too tickled about the Texas quarterback's fumble, comparing it to a Greek tragedy. Imagine if Tim Tebow, in his corn-fed handsomeness, shaved a mustache. I have. It's called the apocalypse. [AMI]

The All-Star Game is rife with "bare-faced mortals," so the American Mustache Institute — bless their whiskers — is sponsoring a so-called Stache Dash. Find playing cards of mustachioed legends, win bleacher seats. No facial hair necessary. [AMI]

It's a sad commentary on the state of the summer sports scene that one of the most important things happening today (other than the Arena Football playoffs, of course) is this Mustache Madness tournament going on at Keyboard Quarterbacks.